“Do you even lift bro?” has become the new slang phrase in this period where fitness has become a popular trend across the globe. It has become apparent that fitness, for the most part, dominates many aspects of social media – from infomercials on the best workout videos to the plethora of “how to” fitness videos on YouTube. However, the cause of this fitness boom has been debated for quite some time. Many people assume that the rise in fitness occurred because of its correlation to longevity, but I believe that fitness became popularized through social media. Through the help of celebrity-athletes and the advancement of social media outlets, the public’s perception of fitness (mainly aesthetics) changed from being only for the select few to the obtainable goal of the average citizen. Celebrity-athletes like Arnold Schwarzenegger unleashed the caged world of fitness from the elite few to the general public. Before the 1970s, physical fitness was closely related to bodybuilders and athletes, but certain athletes were able to break down the barriers that separated the sports industry from the media entertainment industry. Such an athlete was Austrian-born bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger started his bodybuilding career in the late 1960s, a time where it was considered that only the lower class admired extreme muscularity in men (Sailer). Here, Schwarzenegger redefined the level of competition in bodybuilding with his tall physique anchored with large aesthetic muscles, but then also surprised the world by crossing over to the movie industry. Even with his thick Austrian accent, Schwarzenegger had made himself the biggest movie star in Hollywood by the late 1980’s and reinvented masculinity in his own “bulging, bru... ... middle of paper ... ...ment. Works Cited "Adult Cigarette Smoking in the United States: Current Estimates." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 Feb. 2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Clemmitt, Marcia. "Social Media Explosion." CQ Researcher 25 Jan. 2013: 81-104. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Clemmit, Marcia. “Social Networking.” CQ Researcher 17 Sept. 2010: 749-72. Web. 25 Feb. 2014. Gremeaux, Vincent, Mathieu Gayda, Romuald Lepers, Philippe Sosner, Martin Juneau, and Anil Nigam. "Exercise and Longevity." Maturitas 73.4 (2012): 312-17.ScienceDirect. Web. 26 Feb. 2014. Sailer, Steve. "Bodybuilding and Steroids." Steroids. Ed. Stefan Kiesbye. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. Contemporary Issues Companion. Rpt. from "What's Unique about Arnold Schwarzenegger? Steroids." United Press International. 2003. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
Taking all this into consideration the goal of my paper is not to discourage you from working out, but rather inform you in the realities of weight lifting. The media and society continues you to fill out heads will lies about weightlifting weather its gender stereotypes and just the belief that one can achieve the stereotypical perfect body. There should be a greater understanding of how the media incorrectly portray weight lifting, working out, the idea of the perfect body and how society.
At the Gym, written by Mark Doty, dramatizes the conflict within the mind of a bodybuilder and his desire to change who and what he is. The speaker observes the routines of the bodybuilder bench-pressing at a local gym, and attempts to explain the driving force that compels him to change his appearance. The speaker illustrates the physical use of inanimate objects as the tools used for the “desired” transformation: “and hoist nothing that need be lifted” (5,6). However, coupled with “but some burden they’ve chosen this time” (7), the speaker takes the illustration beyond the physical use of the tools of transformation and delves into the bodybuilder’s mental state. The speaker ends by portraying the bodybuilder as an arrogant, muscular being with fragile feelings of insecurity.
Anabolic Steroids or simply put, “Steroids”, is a medicine which has become increasingly popular in the last few decades, specifically in the world of professional sports and body building. In a literal term, the word anabolic means building of the body muscle and by using anabolic steroids, the potential user becomes stronger, sharper, larger and tougher than he would normally be. The consequences of these steroids could be much bigger to a human body and the usage of such illegal products could put an individual’s body at great risk (Haupt & Rovere, 1983).
The intent of this essay is to show that steroids have many negative effects and that steroids, and other natural supplements, should be closely studied by the FDA. This essay will also support the claim that the professional sports industry needs to eliminate steroid use and set a good example for younger athletes.
Over the years even action figures have gotten larger muscles, so much so that they are to proportions physically impossible to obtain. Every time you turn the corner, your eyes are drawn to some advertisement that shows a man with his shirt off, muscular and defined. “There is no way to plug popular culture into an equation and see what effect it has on mass psychology, of course, but there is widespread sentiment that these provocative images of buff males have really upped the ant...
When people see a barbell most of them think of this subculture because it is one of the main items bodybuilders use like in bench press or squats and also deadlifts and shoulder press and other workouts. Being the most commonly used weight among bodybuilding I think that the barbell is the perfect icon for this subculture because anyone would think of th...
A. M. Kaplan and M. Haenlein, ‘Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media’, Business Horizons, vol. 53, no. 1, 2010, pp. 59-68.
Who cares what people think about my body? For years, these words were almost exclusively uttered by men and self-secure people alike. However, with increasing societal pressures and expectations, abdominal muscles seem to be getting more attention than ever and male models seem to be just as highly coveted as women in the modeling industry. It seems that, the rise in men’s desire for a more masculine, defined body, in conjunction with the women’s desire for a man that has comparable beauty to the men they see in advertisements, come together to create revolutionized shift in the male body image. All these things seem to be true due to the exposure they get from social media. However, this is mere exposure; while in actuality male modeling advertisements has not significantly changed since the 1990s nor has societies view of the male body.
Although fitness centers and gyms may appear to be a place to break a sweat and work out with the intention of not being seen without makeup and in grungy clothes, this may not be the case, in particular when it comes to college gyms. Contrary to the findings Tamara L. Black displayed in her dissertation for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from the University of California in Los Angeles, in which she depicts the situation of the classical fitness center as exercise dominated, after observations made while participating in the Boston College Recreational Complex, fitness centers may be more heavily focused on expressing sexual and social relations than for health related issues. Although she does not elaborate on this view of the gym, she does recognize that “popular media, cultural stereotypes, and some empirical literature depict gyms as places to meet people, where sexualized interactions are likely to take place, where bodies are on display as objects of desire” (pg. 40). This may be the perfect definition of the situation that I found in my observations. Shari L. Dworkin and Faye Linda Wachs, in Body Panic: Gender, Health, and the Selling of Fitness, acknowledge “mainstream media construct men as active and women as inactive. In this view, women are often shown as ‘being visually perfect’ and passive, immobile, and unchanging’” (pg. 40). Perhaps we have media to blame for this hyper-sexualization of a situation that was initially intended for self-fulfillment and health related practices.
Women compose the overwhelming majority of the reported cases of eating disorders. The, desire to be thin consumes many young women who idealize the false and unrealistic model form depicted in popular magazines. Recently, researchers have started to appreciate the role of exercise in the development of eating disorders. This shift has illuminated the striking influence of sports on body image satisfaction in men as well as women. The importance of a fit physique has grown increasingly salient to men in modem society as indicated by the rise of hypermasculine action heroes such as Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. One growing sport, bodybuilding, now has the sixth largest sports federation and has come to the attention of researchers. In the last few years, researchers have linked bodybuilding to an overwhelming drive for lean muscle mass coined "reverse anorexia" by Pope, Katz, and Hudson (1993) and "bigameraria" by Taylor(1985). The bodybuilders' obsessional behavior resembles anorexia nervosa with remarkable similarity except that the drive for enormous muscles replaces the drive for thinness. This alarming psychological syndrome may motivate bodybuilders and weightlifters, to a lesser extent, to relinquish friends, to give up responsibilities, to pursue unusual diets, to overtrain and to risk their health by abusing steroids.
Olenski, Steve “Social Media Usage Up 800% for U.S. Online Adults In Just 8 Years” Forbes.com Inc. 6 September 2013. Web. 6 February 2014
The impact of Social Media on Society Technology has come a long way from its existence till today. In today’s modern world, people are surrounded by technology everywhere. In the present, people are surrounded by disrupting technologies every day. Today, innovators are always creating new technologies that will make an impact on the daily lives of millions. Technology has made the lives of many people easier.
http://ehis.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.waketech.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=3be91451-70d2-4198-a1f8-3acc7e3888cb%40sessionmgr10&vid=7&hid=6> Klass, Perry. “Seeking Social Media More as Portal Than as Pitfall.” New York Times. New
Nowadays, social media is growing very rapidly throughout the whole world. Social media has changed the way that we communicate with others through using these common social networking sites like Face book, Twitter, and Instagram…For that, social media has positively and negatively impacted our life.
Redsicker, P. (2014). 5 Social Media Trends for 2014, New Research. Retrieved 25 March, 2014, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-trends-2014/